choose-outdoors-when-you-can
I’m a big fan of exercising outdoors as much as I can. It’s one of the things that attracted me to Athletica. If the sessions were tied to a turbo I’d likely not do them. I got a power meter crank in the Black Friday deals and that shifted even more workouts outdoors. About the only workout I now do on the smart trainer are the VO2 max ones.
I’ve got a FTP test next week and was looking at suitable local roads for an all out 20 min effort. What would help me would be a workout alternate of the 2 x 8 min all out test protocol. That would open up more suitable roads for the test.
2 Likes
Couldn't agree more with your sentiments Phil. My newsletter post to your point here for anyone else interested.
Noted your point on the 2 x 8 min. We may have a solution in the pipeline related to this...
@prof Well I opted to do a 2 x 8 minute all out FTP test, with 10 mins easy between efforts today. I rightly surmised I would have run out of safe uninterrupted road with the 20 minute test. The great thing is, even though it was a 20 min test scheduled, the AI recognised the efforts for what they were and has bumped up my FTP.
I have never done the 8 minute test before, and I must say that mentally the minutes ticked by quite quickly. Likely as it was outdoors where as I tested indoors and 20 min protocol last time. The 8 min test certainly seems to agree with me outdoors.
@phil Exceptional. Love how you’ve gone about this one, and even better that our AI performed as it should for you…
Is it possible re-analysis of the training plan is incorrectly including just-completed workouts?
I did a work this morning (Nov 16th) - a HIIT workout. It was 5 x 1' of 30/30s, followed by 4 minutes of extra recovery before the cool down, all of which I executed fine. Now (an hour or so later), I'm looking at the website and I see today's completed workout listed with compliance 'as planned', but the description of the workout no longer reflects what I did: it states "8x1' of 30/30s (2' extra recover after 8th repetition)". See attache3d screenshot, and if you're able to see the workout I actually did, you'll note that this was not it - even though the compliance is marked 'as planned'.
All I can think of is perhaps when the software was updating my training plan, perhaps today's already-completed workout was incorrectly recalculated as well?
Remi.
[attach]98[/attach]
Thank you for noting @remids. The answer relates to the following thread also. On your profile settings, please tick the box that tells Athletica not to modify today's sessions and that should solve the issue (I hope). Please let me know.
Best,
Prof
@paul Well I opted to do a 2 x 8 minute all out FTP test, with 10 mins easy between efforts today. I rightly surmised I would have run out of safe uninterrupted road with the 20 minute test. The great thing is, even though it was a 20 min test scheduled, the AI recognised the efforts for what they were and has bumped up my FTP.
I have never done the 8 minute test before, and I must say that mentally the minutes ticked by quite quickly. Likely as it was outdoors where as I tested indoors and 20 min protocol last time. The 8 min test certainly seems to agree with me outdoors.
...if it would be helpful to have a 'before' view to confirm that this was not the workout showing yesterday, here is the contents of the Zwift workout file I exported the evening of November 15th when getting ready for this morning's workout.
(I tried attaching the file, but .zwo files are not allowed. I manually added a backslash to break the hiitscience.com URL, because it was affecting how the data is rendered on the screen.)
<workout_file>
<author>athletica.ai</author>
<name>Athletica - Short HIIT 30"/30" interval ride</name>
<description>Ideally perform this on your trainer, although outdoors works fine too.
Short interval HIIT is an effective means of enhancing your maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and performance. The workout uses short bouts of work above your pVO2max, with passive relief periods, to enable recruitment of your larger fast twitch muscles, as well as stimulation of maximal cardiac output (your heart).
https\://hiitscience.com/optimizing-your-hiit-go-short-to-get-more-bang-for-buck/</description>
<sportType>bike</sportType>
<tags><tag name="ATHLETICA"/></tags>
<workout>
<Warmup Duration="960" PowerLow="0.4" PowerHigh="0.77" show_avg="1"/>
<IntervalsT Repeat="5" OnDuration="30" OffDuration="30" OnPower="1.36" OffPower="0.49" show_avg="1"/>
<SteadyState Duration="240" Power="0.67" show_avg="1"/>
<Cooldown Duration="960" PowerLow="0.77" PowerHigh="0.4" show_avg="1"/>
</workout>
</workout_file>
1 Like